I remember watching this beautiful Powell and Pressburger film a long time ago, I could never forget it. An ageing soldier is a general (in the Home Guard?). At the beginning of the film, he is captured in a Turkish bath by a young lieutenant and his men before a training exercise is due to begin. The scene reflects on how the old soldier's thinking is stuck in the past, when the enemy was expected to play by the rules. "War starts at midnight!" complains the general. The film then flashes back to tell the fascinating story of the old soldier's life.

Is war looming again? I think a war on the scale of WWII is unlikely, although it cannot be discounted. I see similarities between the rise of the Islamic State and the rise of the Nazis for certain, but I suspect the Islamic State will be thwarted before they can establish their caliphate.

What I think is indisputable, however, is that we are in the midst of an ideological war of ideas, and at the moment Islam is winning. Of course there is no overall leadership in a war of ideas, but the tactics employed by the "other side" seem to me to follow a pattern. The term "taqiyya" may be somewhat overused, being as I understand it a Shia term, but there is certainly a very wide misinformation campaign going on, supported by the appeasement of our politicians, the Neville Chamberlains of our day. Are they being manipulated as well by shadowy advisers, supposedly learned scholars in our universities? Pressure is coming from the OIC at the UN to introduce a worldwide law against criticizing religions. £very loophole in the law is exploited to the maximum. It seems that government petitions are being manipulated to influence government policy. Questions have been raised about postal voting, particularly in certain areas of our country, you know the ones I mean. Then, of course, we have the use of the most extreme acts of terror to terrorize us into submission. The Islamic State thinks nothing of severing the heads off aid workers and other innocents. Demographics also seems to be being used as a sort of weapon, "they have lost their fertility" shouted one imam.